'Glee' ratings rise for Cory Monteith tribute

Thursday’s heartfelt hour delivered 7.4 million viewers and a 2.8 rating among adults 18-49, Glee‘s best rating in about a year. It’s up 40 percent from the musical dramedy’s recent season premiere and up 75 percent from last week. Here’s EW’s take on the episode and our full recap.

Over on ABC, the Once Upon a Time spin-off premiere didn’t fare so well. Wonderland continued the network’s struggle at 8 p.m. in the slot, pulling only 5.7 million viewers and a 1.7 rating in the demo. That’s down 23 percent from Last Resort‘s opening in this time period last year.

NBC’s new comedies fared worse … far worse. The Michael J. Fox Show plummeted 29 percent for its third week on the air to 3.8 million viewers and a 1.2 demo rating. This is a series, you’ll recall, that NBC ordered 22 episodes of without seeing a pilot first. And that’s the best-rated freshman NBC sitcom on last night. Then there are fellow freshmen Welcome to the Family (0.8, down 27 percent) and Sean Saves the World (1.0, down 29 percent), which only debuted a week ago and are throwing out ratings that normally would get a show yanked from the schedule pretty quickly. NBC has been doing well this fall compared to other networks, but its Thursday comedy lineup is looking disastrous. And there’s still 18 more episodes of TheMichael J. Fox Show left to go (two ran the show’s first week).

CBS’ new comedies posted far better returns, though they’re basking in Big Bang Theory‘s helpful rating afterglow and down a bit from last week: The Millers (3.1) and The Crazy Ones (2.4). CBS points out crude family comedy The Millers retained 94 percent of its premiere rating — despite lead-in Big Bang slipping a little — which is a higher percentage of premiere episode retention than any other new show this fall for its second episode. Those of the types of stats that networks really like to see.

Also last night:

— ABC’s Scandal fever cooled down a bit, softening 14 percent while still ranking as one of the night’s best-rated shows. With Glee up, Grey’s Anatomy also took a slight hit.